Chapter 11
"How long has it been? Years ... Khushi, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
It was the last thing Khushi had expected to hear, and she gaped at him.
Manish's eyes closed again, and he seemed to drift away, his face as pale as the sheets he lay on. Then with a supreme effort, he opened his eyes again. He looked around almost blindly.
“Pratibha?!”
The younger girl moved forward quickly, her eyes fixed on Manish, a wild, almost desperate look in them.
“I'm here, Manish. I'm here.”
“Is she there? Is Khushi really here? Or am I dreaming?”
Khushi spoke for the first time. It took an effort, and her voice was scratchy, soft.
“You're not dreaming, Manish. Or if you are, I'm dreaming the same dream. Only I'd call it a nightmare.”
Manish gave a half smile. Just a twitch of the lips, but it was there.
“It is you,” he said. “Nobody but you could talk like that.”
He closed his eyes again, and they all waited. This time when he opened them, there was determination in them, and he focussed on Khushi at once.
“Khushi? I don't have much time. Ma? Baba? Are you with them? Do you know where they are? I tried to find you all, Khushi ... I really did. Khushi … Khushi, I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry!”
Khushi moved forward to the bed, her eyes moist.
“Ma and Baba are with me, Manish,” she said softly. “They are … well.”
She bit her lip on the lie, but her voice was steady, as steady as she could make it.
“We tried to find you too, Manish. We tried so hard … but you didn’t want to be found, did you? Where did you get lost, Manish?”
His eyes closed, and to her surprise, a tear trickled from one side.
Then he opened his eyes again, and gazed at her.
“I should have known,” he said softly. “You cared for them too much to abandon them, the way I did. I’ve been such a bad son, Khushi … such a waste. You should have been their child, not me. Do they … do they hate me very much?”
She looked at him helplessly.
“Manish, what have you done to yourself? You had everything, everything in the world. Parents who loved you, a wonderful life, friends … Then why did you do this? Why have things turned out this way? Why did you throw it all away? Everything was there for you, you had it all.”
He grimaced.
“That was the problem, Khushi, don’t you know? That was the problem. I had it all, and I got it all so easily. Money, a great life … even college was a breeze because I didn’t really have to work at all. Baba’s money and position made sure I got everything I wanted without a struggle. And I wanted it all … I wanted more. And I found there was one thing I didn’t have … I didn't have you. So of course I wanted you.”
Khushi looked stricken. His face changed.
“Don't look like that. It's not your fault. It never was. I knew you loved him. I knew you very well, remember. I knew you from childhood, and you were the most transparent person there was. I knew you loved Arnav. You didn’t know it yourself, but I did. I used to see your face light up when he was around, I saw the way you both spent hours together, lost in each other. And I was angry … because you were my friend, mine. How could Arnav get you? I also knew you'd never say no to Ma. I used that, Khushi. I was a spoilt child, who wanted everything, and then when he got it, wanted more, always more. I wanted especially what wasn't mine, and I used all my cleverness to get it. But I forgot that you can't do that with people, not with their emotions. You were never mine to get. You always belonged to him, and he to you. I'm sorry, Khushi. That's all I wanted to say to you before I went. I'm sorry. When I found Pratibha, that's when I realised what love really is. Not the selfishness I had with you. Love is giving, and she has given me everything. I had to give you your life back. Tell me, Khushi. Tell me you found him, you're with him. That will ease my conscience.”
Tears were running down her cheeks. “Manish!”
“Tell me you forgive me, Khushi,” he said urgently. “Tell Ma and Baba to forgive me. Khushi, please. Will you do that? Tell Arnav I'm sorry. And there's one more thing. The most important thing for me, and maybe for ma and baba. Pratibha,…” he looked at her and she nodded, and wheeled herself out. Raj followed her.
His eyes closed again, but he was still there. He spoke softly.
“I know I don't deserve it, but can you do us both one big favor, Khushi? That will let me die in peace? Please! I know you never loved me as a husband, but as a friend, as a brother, maybe? Please?”
Khushi nodded. “You are a friend, Manish. You are and always will be. Perhaps my first friend. We should have left it that way. Both of us made mistakes. I should never have agreed to marry you. I didn't have the courage either, to face your parents. Manish, come back with me to Bombay. Ma and Baba …they need you. Manish, please come back. Bring Pratibha. I'll explain to them. Come back, Manish!”
He shook his head, and it was obvious he was exhausted.
“I can't. I'm dying, Khushi, I know that. I don't want them to see me like this, and anyway, I can't go. I'm in no state to go. I want to stay with Pratibha till the end. Her brother will look after everything when I go. But, Khushi, please look after Pratibha after I'm gone. Please. And my daughter… my baby … Khushi, will you look after….”
His voice had been getting fainter and fainter, and now tailed away completely, just as Pratibha and Raj came back into the room, the latter carrying a small bundle in his arms. Pratibha gave an exclamation and wheeled her chair swiftly to Manish's bedside. When she looked up, her face was wet, and her small hand clutched his desperately.
“Don't let him go,” she cried to her brother. “Not yet! Please, not yet!”
But Manish had gone, slipped back into the coma he had so briefly emerged from.
Raj held his sister's hand, as the doctor rushed in, and checked the silent figure on the bed. Then he looked up at the group, and motioned them out of the room.
“Doctor,” said Pratibha, urgently. “Doctor, how is he?”
The doctor looked at her briefly. “Bad,” he responded, his attention on the bed. “Leave him alone. He has said what he wanted to say. Let him be at peace now.”
Pratibha nodded, her eyes wet. She looked at Khushi, and then at the small bundle in her brother's arms.
“He was waiting for you,” she said, her voice full of grief. “He was waiting to hand her over to you. He had faith in you, Khushi. Maybe not in his parents, he didn’t know whether they would accept her, but he knew you would.”
Khushi nodded, her eyes wet. She couldn’t speak. Pratibha looked at her with pleading eyes.
“Will you look after our baby, Khushi? Will you tell him that? Then he can go in peace. He loves her very much. Even though he has never held her even once, he wasn’t allowed to hold her because of the infection, but he has talked to her for hours on end, he has loved her as a father should, as his father never loved him.”
There was bitterness in her voice. Khushi looked at her gently. She spoke, her words an effort for her, shocked as she was.
“Pratibha,” she said, with an effort. “Pratibha, don't think so badly of them, when you have never even met them. And don’t say they don’t love him. It’s not possible for any parents to not love their child. They love him, he is their only child. Their only fault is that they spoilt him with their love. He was petrified of Baba, Baba was a strict father … but Baba loves him too. Baba…”
“Then why did they never make an effort to come here, try and find him, see what state he is in? Why did they wash their hands off him?” asked Pratibha fiercely, her eyes angry.
Khushi took a deep breath. “How do I explain to you, Pratibha? What happened with us, what we have been through the last four years, because of Manish’s drug habit. His habit has ruined four lives, not just his own.”
She turned away from Pratibha, her eyes gazing unseeingly out the window.
“Did Manish ever try to think what state they could be in? Whether they were in a fit condition to try and find him? The drugs didn’t just give him a high, they distorted his perceptions, his views of right and wrong, even his memories.”
She turned back to Pratibha. Her voice, when she spoke next, was flat, emotionless, as though recounting the story of strangers.
“Manish’s drug habit ruined everything, Pratibha. His own life, and that of Ma and Baba. They have lost everything in the last few years … their home, their health, their business. His father sold everything to send him the money he asked for. Not once, not twice, a hundred times! Is that the action of a man who doesn’t love his son? Did Manish know that the business, the house, the shares, the jewellery, everything has gone? Gone … so that they could send him money, whenever he wanted! And with the money, they sent letters, pleading with him … come back, we'll help you get over your drug habit, we'll do whatever it takes to make you healthy again, just come back. He never answered a single letter, not a single one. Not even the letter in which I told him that his father has had a stroke, and cannot talk, walk, write, anything! His father has lost his memory, and keeps thinking Manish is still in office and will be back home at the end of the day. His parents are in a home. A nursing home, Pratibha! And they are there because of the charity of some friends, not because their only son is looking after them! Left to him, they would be on the streets – that's what he and his drug habit brought them to. They can't expect anything from him, no support, no comfort, nothing! They have to depend on the charity of good friends, on the earnings of their daughter-in-law, who never was, or should have been, their daughter-in-law in the first place! These are the people who are looking after them now, not their own son. And yet they wait for him every day, hoping against hope that he will come back. And you say they don't love him!”
Pratibha listened, aghast. “I didn't know,” she whispered. “He never said anything. He just said…”
Khushi smiled bitterly.
“He just said that his parents didn't love him, they always had too many expectations from him? He said he didn't want to become an architect, but they forced him. He didn't want to marry me, but they forced him. Is that what he said? But he's wrong, Pratibha, he's wrong. I'm not saying he's lying. He was so lost in his drugged world, he probably didn't know the difference between fact and fantasy. It's true that he didn't want to become an architect. But never once did he have the courage to tell them that. He just obeyed his father blindly. And as for marrying me, he didn't marry me to please them.”
She turned away again, her eyes unseeing, her mind reliving the memories of her brief wedding, the wedding that had turned everything upside-down in her life, a wedding that should never have happened … if only she had been strong enough to stop it.
“He married me because he was spoiled, and wanted everything that was out of his reach. When he saw that Khushi, his childhood friend, his property, the orphan fed on crumbs from his table, had got over her childhood worship of him, and was in love with somebody else, he promptly decided he had to have me. His parents could not say no to him, and I could not say no to them. He never loved me, never. And when did he tell me this? On my wedding night! The only consolation I had when I married him, was that I might not be marrying the man I love, but I am marrying someone who loves me, and that myth he shattered on our wedding night.”
Khushi looked out of the window blindly.
“Throughout our marriage, brief though it was, he never let me forget that he had got the better of me and Arnav that he had scored over us by separating us. And in such a way, that today, Arnav thinks of me as a gold digger, and hates me.”
She turned back to Pratibha. “I wish Manish had come back, brought you back to his parents,” she said, more gently. “Maybe we would all have found some happiness. Now …what do I tell them? I can only carry grief for them.”
“Maybe not,” said Raj Bahadur, quietly from the door, and Khushi looked at him in surprise. And then noticed the bundle he was carrying in his arms.
Slowly, she walked to him, and looked at the little face, the perfect features.
Pratibha spoke slowly, her eyes fixed on the baby.
“I told you he married me because I was pregnant. This is our daughter. She's all right. By some miracle. She's healthy. Will you give her to his parents? Will you raise her, and look after her? Tell her about us, and teach her not to be like us. Raise her to be like you. We don't want her to end up like either of her parents.”
Khushi looked at her, and nodded, her being filled with pity and sorrow for this brave girl. She spoke softly.
“I promise you that I will bring up this child as my own. She will never want for love, or a mother's care. And I know Manish's parents will accept her too, will love her. I promise you that.”
She came back to the bed and looked at Manish's face, as he lay unconscious.
“I'm sorry, Manish,” she spoke softly. “I'm sorry, too, but glad I arrived in time. Glad that you waited for me. You've freed me from my guilt, my burden.”
She turned again to Raj Bahadur, hands outstretched to take the baby.
And froze.
Arnav stood at the door, next to Raj Bahadur, watching her steadily.
Khushi's hand crept to her mouth. She couldn't think of anything to say.
"How long has it been? Years ... Khushi, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
It was the last thing Khushi had expected to hear, and she gaped at him.
Manish's eyes closed again, and he seemed to drift away, his face as pale as the sheets he lay on. Then with a supreme effort, he opened his eyes again. He looked around almost blindly.
“Pratibha?!”
The younger girl moved forward quickly, her eyes fixed on Manish, a wild, almost desperate look in them.
“I'm here, Manish. I'm here.”
“Is she there? Is Khushi really here? Or am I dreaming?”
Khushi spoke for the first time. It took an effort, and her voice was scratchy, soft.
“You're not dreaming, Manish. Or if you are, I'm dreaming the same dream. Only I'd call it a nightmare.”
Manish gave a half smile. Just a twitch of the lips, but it was there.
“It is you,” he said. “Nobody but you could talk like that.”
He closed his eyes again, and they all waited. This time when he opened them, there was determination in them, and he focussed on Khushi at once.
“Khushi? I don't have much time. Ma? Baba? Are you with them? Do you know where they are? I tried to find you all, Khushi ... I really did. Khushi … Khushi, I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry!”
Khushi moved forward to the bed, her eyes moist.
“Ma and Baba are with me, Manish,” she said softly. “They are … well.”
She bit her lip on the lie, but her voice was steady, as steady as she could make it.
“We tried to find you too, Manish. We tried so hard … but you didn’t want to be found, did you? Where did you get lost, Manish?”
His eyes closed, and to her surprise, a tear trickled from one side.
Then he opened his eyes again, and gazed at her.
“I should have known,” he said softly. “You cared for them too much to abandon them, the way I did. I’ve been such a bad son, Khushi … such a waste. You should have been their child, not me. Do they … do they hate me very much?”
She looked at him helplessly.
“Manish, what have you done to yourself? You had everything, everything in the world. Parents who loved you, a wonderful life, friends … Then why did you do this? Why have things turned out this way? Why did you throw it all away? Everything was there for you, you had it all.”
He grimaced.
“That was the problem, Khushi, don’t you know? That was the problem. I had it all, and I got it all so easily. Money, a great life … even college was a breeze because I didn’t really have to work at all. Baba’s money and position made sure I got everything I wanted without a struggle. And I wanted it all … I wanted more. And I found there was one thing I didn’t have … I didn't have you. So of course I wanted you.”
Khushi looked stricken. His face changed.
“Don't look like that. It's not your fault. It never was. I knew you loved him. I knew you very well, remember. I knew you from childhood, and you were the most transparent person there was. I knew you loved Arnav. You didn’t know it yourself, but I did. I used to see your face light up when he was around, I saw the way you both spent hours together, lost in each other. And I was angry … because you were my friend, mine. How could Arnav get you? I also knew you'd never say no to Ma. I used that, Khushi. I was a spoilt child, who wanted everything, and then when he got it, wanted more, always more. I wanted especially what wasn't mine, and I used all my cleverness to get it. But I forgot that you can't do that with people, not with their emotions. You were never mine to get. You always belonged to him, and he to you. I'm sorry, Khushi. That's all I wanted to say to you before I went. I'm sorry. When I found Pratibha, that's when I realised what love really is. Not the selfishness I had with you. Love is giving, and she has given me everything. I had to give you your life back. Tell me, Khushi. Tell me you found him, you're with him. That will ease my conscience.”
Tears were running down her cheeks. “Manish!”
“Tell me you forgive me, Khushi,” he said urgently. “Tell Ma and Baba to forgive me. Khushi, please. Will you do that? Tell Arnav I'm sorry. And there's one more thing. The most important thing for me, and maybe for ma and baba. Pratibha,…” he looked at her and she nodded, and wheeled herself out. Raj followed her.
His eyes closed again, but he was still there. He spoke softly.
“I know I don't deserve it, but can you do us both one big favor, Khushi? That will let me die in peace? Please! I know you never loved me as a husband, but as a friend, as a brother, maybe? Please?”
Khushi nodded. “You are a friend, Manish. You are and always will be. Perhaps my first friend. We should have left it that way. Both of us made mistakes. I should never have agreed to marry you. I didn't have the courage either, to face your parents. Manish, come back with me to Bombay. Ma and Baba …they need you. Manish, please come back. Bring Pratibha. I'll explain to them. Come back, Manish!”
He shook his head, and it was obvious he was exhausted.
“I can't. I'm dying, Khushi, I know that. I don't want them to see me like this, and anyway, I can't go. I'm in no state to go. I want to stay with Pratibha till the end. Her brother will look after everything when I go. But, Khushi, please look after Pratibha after I'm gone. Please. And my daughter… my baby … Khushi, will you look after….”
His voice had been getting fainter and fainter, and now tailed away completely, just as Pratibha and Raj came back into the room, the latter carrying a small bundle in his arms. Pratibha gave an exclamation and wheeled her chair swiftly to Manish's bedside. When she looked up, her face was wet, and her small hand clutched his desperately.
“Don't let him go,” she cried to her brother. “Not yet! Please, not yet!”
But Manish had gone, slipped back into the coma he had so briefly emerged from.
Raj held his sister's hand, as the doctor rushed in, and checked the silent figure on the bed. Then he looked up at the group, and motioned them out of the room.
“Doctor,” said Pratibha, urgently. “Doctor, how is he?”
The doctor looked at her briefly. “Bad,” he responded, his attention on the bed. “Leave him alone. He has said what he wanted to say. Let him be at peace now.”
Pratibha nodded, her eyes wet. She looked at Khushi, and then at the small bundle in her brother's arms.
“He was waiting for you,” she said, her voice full of grief. “He was waiting to hand her over to you. He had faith in you, Khushi. Maybe not in his parents, he didn’t know whether they would accept her, but he knew you would.”
Khushi nodded, her eyes wet. She couldn’t speak. Pratibha looked at her with pleading eyes.
“Will you look after our baby, Khushi? Will you tell him that? Then he can go in peace. He loves her very much. Even though he has never held her even once, he wasn’t allowed to hold her because of the infection, but he has talked to her for hours on end, he has loved her as a father should, as his father never loved him.”
There was bitterness in her voice. Khushi looked at her gently. She spoke, her words an effort for her, shocked as she was.
“Pratibha,” she said, with an effort. “Pratibha, don't think so badly of them, when you have never even met them. And don’t say they don’t love him. It’s not possible for any parents to not love their child. They love him, he is their only child. Their only fault is that they spoilt him with their love. He was petrified of Baba, Baba was a strict father … but Baba loves him too. Baba…”
“Then why did they never make an effort to come here, try and find him, see what state he is in? Why did they wash their hands off him?” asked Pratibha fiercely, her eyes angry.
Khushi took a deep breath. “How do I explain to you, Pratibha? What happened with us, what we have been through the last four years, because of Manish’s drug habit. His habit has ruined four lives, not just his own.”
She turned away from Pratibha, her eyes gazing unseeingly out the window.
“Did Manish ever try to think what state they could be in? Whether they were in a fit condition to try and find him? The drugs didn’t just give him a high, they distorted his perceptions, his views of right and wrong, even his memories.”
She turned back to Pratibha. Her voice, when she spoke next, was flat, emotionless, as though recounting the story of strangers.
“Manish’s drug habit ruined everything, Pratibha. His own life, and that of Ma and Baba. They have lost everything in the last few years … their home, their health, their business. His father sold everything to send him the money he asked for. Not once, not twice, a hundred times! Is that the action of a man who doesn’t love his son? Did Manish know that the business, the house, the shares, the jewellery, everything has gone? Gone … so that they could send him money, whenever he wanted! And with the money, they sent letters, pleading with him … come back, we'll help you get over your drug habit, we'll do whatever it takes to make you healthy again, just come back. He never answered a single letter, not a single one. Not even the letter in which I told him that his father has had a stroke, and cannot talk, walk, write, anything! His father has lost his memory, and keeps thinking Manish is still in office and will be back home at the end of the day. His parents are in a home. A nursing home, Pratibha! And they are there because of the charity of some friends, not because their only son is looking after them! Left to him, they would be on the streets – that's what he and his drug habit brought them to. They can't expect anything from him, no support, no comfort, nothing! They have to depend on the charity of good friends, on the earnings of their daughter-in-law, who never was, or should have been, their daughter-in-law in the first place! These are the people who are looking after them now, not their own son. And yet they wait for him every day, hoping against hope that he will come back. And you say they don't love him!”
Pratibha listened, aghast. “I didn't know,” she whispered. “He never said anything. He just said…”
Khushi smiled bitterly.
“He just said that his parents didn't love him, they always had too many expectations from him? He said he didn't want to become an architect, but they forced him. He didn't want to marry me, but they forced him. Is that what he said? But he's wrong, Pratibha, he's wrong. I'm not saying he's lying. He was so lost in his drugged world, he probably didn't know the difference between fact and fantasy. It's true that he didn't want to become an architect. But never once did he have the courage to tell them that. He just obeyed his father blindly. And as for marrying me, he didn't marry me to please them.”
She turned away again, her eyes unseeing, her mind reliving the memories of her brief wedding, the wedding that had turned everything upside-down in her life, a wedding that should never have happened … if only she had been strong enough to stop it.
“He married me because he was spoiled, and wanted everything that was out of his reach. When he saw that Khushi, his childhood friend, his property, the orphan fed on crumbs from his table, had got over her childhood worship of him, and was in love with somebody else, he promptly decided he had to have me. His parents could not say no to him, and I could not say no to them. He never loved me, never. And when did he tell me this? On my wedding night! The only consolation I had when I married him, was that I might not be marrying the man I love, but I am marrying someone who loves me, and that myth he shattered on our wedding night.”
Khushi looked out of the window blindly.
“Throughout our marriage, brief though it was, he never let me forget that he had got the better of me and Arnav that he had scored over us by separating us. And in such a way, that today, Arnav thinks of me as a gold digger, and hates me.”
She turned back to Pratibha. “I wish Manish had come back, brought you back to his parents,” she said, more gently. “Maybe we would all have found some happiness. Now …what do I tell them? I can only carry grief for them.”
“Maybe not,” said Raj Bahadur, quietly from the door, and Khushi looked at him in surprise. And then noticed the bundle he was carrying in his arms.
Slowly, she walked to him, and looked at the little face, the perfect features.
Pratibha spoke slowly, her eyes fixed on the baby.
“I told you he married me because I was pregnant. This is our daughter. She's all right. By some miracle. She's healthy. Will you give her to his parents? Will you raise her, and look after her? Tell her about us, and teach her not to be like us. Raise her to be like you. We don't want her to end up like either of her parents.”
Khushi looked at her, and nodded, her being filled with pity and sorrow for this brave girl. She spoke softly.
“I promise you that I will bring up this child as my own. She will never want for love, or a mother's care. And I know Manish's parents will accept her too, will love her. I promise you that.”
She came back to the bed and looked at Manish's face, as he lay unconscious.
“I'm sorry, Manish,” she spoke softly. “I'm sorry, too, but glad I arrived in time. Glad that you waited for me. You've freed me from my guilt, my burden.”
She turned again to Raj Bahadur, hands outstretched to take the baby.
And froze.
Arnav stood at the door, next to Raj Bahadur, watching her steadily.
Khushi's hand crept to her mouth. She couldn't think of anything to say.
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